Our kitchen in the bush

Have you ever wondered how you’d cook in the middle of nowhere for six weeks without refrigeration? without a gas or electric cook stove? without a grocery store?

Let me show you a picture of the “kitchen” during our six-week stay in Maasai-land for our orientation course.

The footlockers and orange tent in the upper photo served as cupboards, and a couple of large folding tables provided work surfaces. (Can you spot me looking through one of the footlockers?)

Our stove? You see it there in the bottom picture where two staff members, Jacinta and James, stir up something tasty in a suferia. (Read more about Jacinta here.)

Speaking of suferias, our fellow orientee, Peggy, baked a cake one day.

How?

She filled one of those huge suferias about half full with sand and heated it over the fire. When it was just the right temperature, she placed her batter-filled cake pan on the hot sand, popped a cover on top of the suferia, and voilà, she had created an oven! Clever lady, that Peggy.

“The dust of Africa had penetrated my skin pores and entered into my soul”

Take a look at these boots. (The other items have significance, too, but we’ll talk about them another day.)

I wore those boots in Africa, mostly during Kenya Safari, our orientation course. While you read the first three chapters of Grandma’s Letters from Africa, picture me wearing those boots.

All these years later, every time—and I mean every time—I shove my feet into them and cinch up the laces, I ask myself, “Do you think there’s any African dust still on these boots?” Then I smile and answer myself, “I sure hope so!”

Nine years after returning to the States, I discovered that Shel Arensen, a man I ran into from time to time in Kenya, had published a novel, The Dust of Africa.

When I read the book’s description, I knew I had to order it, and I’m so glad I did. It brought back scores of memories—Blue Band margarine, chai, and brown-red puddles. Bata safari boots. Mosquitoes dive-bombing my ears at night.

—And nocturnal hippo noises at Lake Naivasha. Shel described their sounds as “spluttering and wheeze-honking.” In Grandma’s Letters from Africa, I described them as “ghastly bellows and snorts.” Click here to see a brief video clip of hippos and hear some of their noises. (They make other noises, too.)

Shel wrote this about his novel’s main character, Clay Andrews: 

“I slumped into a chair at the Blukat Restaurant on Muindi Mbingu Street opposite the city market. ‘Do you still make the best samosas in Nairobi?’ I asked the waiter.

“‘Ndino Bwana, Yes sir,’ he responded with a smile.

“‘Then bring me four with a cold Coke.’”

Until I read The Dust of Africa, I’d forgotten that we had to ask specifically for a cold soda pop, otherwise it arrived at our table at room temperature. We avoided ice cubes because we couldn’t know if they were made with safe water, so the next best option was refrigerated sodas. I can still hear myself placing my order, “Diet Coke. Cold, but no ice.”

In the book, Clay Andrews continues: “The waiter came back with a small clear plate with four triangular pastries oozing grease onto a white torn-in-half napkin.”

Yes, I remember the oozing grease, but I’d forgotten about the torn-in-half paper napkins. It was a cost-cutting thing. The recollection brought me a smile.

After reading Shel’s book, I felt like I’d spent a few days back in Africa. It was a rich experience.

I was delighted to learn the source of Shel’s title, The Dust of Africa. It comes from an African proverb: “You can’t wash the dust of Africa off your feet.”

I’d never heard that proverb before, but I know what it means. Shel described it well. He wrote, “The dust of Africa had penetrated my skin pores and entered into my soul.”

Yes, I’m sure I still have African dust on my safari boots.

In addition to The Dust of Africa, Shel Arensen has written a number of other books. He has also served as the editor of Old Africa Magazine.

Pulsing rhythms, rich harmonies, throbbing beats

One of my favorite experiences during our orientation was singing in Swahili with Jacinta, a gentle young Kenyan woman hired to help with childcare while parents attended classes.

Jacinta led us in the traditional way of singing: She sang a line, then the rest of us sang an answering line. We sang back and forth until we finished the song.

We didn’t need musical instruments. Someone tapped on a kettle, someone else kept rhythm with a stick on a chunk of wood, and the rest of us clapped our hands.

I’ll never tire of those African rhythms and harmonies. In Grandma’s Letters from Africa, I described them as rich, distinct, and pulsing. They quickly boogied their way into my heart and spirit, and they dance there still. I treasure them.

Clickon this link to view a short video of Kenyans singing a Swahili praise song, “Angalia Bwana” (Look, Oh Lord). The leader sings a line, like Jacinta did, and the others sing an answering line. But keep in mind that in this clip, those are shy young people! Usually, Kenyans sing out with great volume and energy, but I suspect they were nervous on camera.

Here’s another clip that will give you an idea of the pulsing African rhythms and harmonies, and the way Africans usually sing out and enjoy dancing while they sing in church (unlike those shy young people in the first clip). And, oh!—how I miss that now back in America! Like I wrote in Grandma’s Letters from Africa, King David’s dance before the Lord (2 Samuel 6:14) could not have been any more joyous than those dancing in African churches!

I ran into Jacinta a few times after Kenya Safari. She’s a soft-spoken, gentle young lady with a ready smile. (African smiles seem more radiant than Americans’ smiles, don’t they?)

Sweet Jacinta radiated joy!

She blessed me with her quiet spirit,

inner radiance, sunny smiles, and her Swahili worship songs.

Jacinta was a gift from God.

Jacinta helped with childcare and cooking during the orientation course.

Have you ever eaten a chapati?

In my last post, I listed a number of firsts experienced during Kenya Safari, our three-month orientation course. Some of those firsts were delightful, others not so much!

Another first was eating chapatis.

When Indians started moving to Kenya (around 1900, if I recall correctly), they introduced chapatis—basically, flour tortillas.

Chapatis consist of about three cups of flour and one cup of cold water stirred together and kneaded for a few minutes.

After letting the dough sit for half an hour, you divide the dough into little balls about the size of a ping pong ball, sprinkle each with flour, and roll them out until they’re very thin.

Traditional recipes call for frying them in a dry pan over a hot fire for a few seconds on each side.

By the time we moved to Kenya, chapatis had become a staple food for Kenyans but over the decades, they’d changed the original Indian recipe.

During our orientation course, the chapatis our Kenyan staff prepared were a quarter of an inch thick (usually thicker) with lard layered in, and fried in lard, too.

In Chapter 2 of Grandma’s Letters from Africa, I described them as “unleavened, and with a dense, rubbery consistency.”

Often people tear them into bite-size pieces and drop them into Kenyan stew—cabbage, onions, carrots, and tomatoes boiled together. Sometimes they add a little meat, too.

Mmmm . . . . Recalling such meals makes my mouth water.

Sweet memories—even though I’m sure all that lard could not have been good for us!

This is lovely Jacinta (more about her next week), along with another staff member, James, working at our cooking fire under enormous fig trees in Eleng’ata Enterit.

Jacinta and James at our cook stove during our orientation in Eleng'ata Enterit